| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: strange contradictions which nature sometimes produces, he
differed in all things from his father; for not only was he
pleasure-loving, joyous, and humane, but he was, moreover, a
Royalist at heart, and continued in friendship with the Cavaliers
up to the period of his proclamation as Protector. It has been
stated that, falling on his knees, he entreated his father to
spare the life of Charles I.; it is certain he remained inactive
whilst the civil wars devastated the land; and there is evidence
to show that, during the seven months and twenty-eight days of
his Protectorship, he shrank from the perpetration of cruelty and
crime. Accordingly, when those who had at first supported his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: the canon came the mournful hoot of an owl. The moment he lay
down, thereby giving up action for the day, all these things
weighed upon him like a great heavy mantle of loneliness. In
truth, they did not constitute loneliness.
And he could no more have dispelled thought than he could have
reached out to touch a cold, bright star.
He wondered how many outcasts like him lay under this
star-studded, velvety sky across the fifteen hundred miles of
wild country between El Paso and the mouth of the river. A vast
wild territory--a refuge for outlaws! Somewhere he had heard or
read that the Texas Rangers kept a book with names and records
The Lone Star Ranger |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: amazement, the girl saw Billina crouching upon the prostrate form of a
speckled rooster. For an instant they both remained motionless, and
then the yellow hen shook her wings to settle the feathers and walked
toward the door with a strut of proud defiance and a cluck of victory,
while the speckled rooster limped away to the group of other chickens,
trailing his crumpled plumage in the dust as he went.
"Why, Billina!" cried Dorothy, in a shocked voice; "have you
been fighting?"
"I really think I have," retorted Billina. "Do you think I'd let that
speckled villain of a rooster lord it over ME, and claim to run this
chicken house, as long as I'm able to peck and scratch? Not if my
Ozma of Oz |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: poverty, and passions? Don't go off on exceptional points."
"No, no! no points," said the lunatic.
"Now, what's the result of all this?" cried Gaudissart. "To you, a
banker, I can sum up the profits in a few words. Listen. A man lives;
he has a future; he appears well; he lives, let us say, by his art; he
wants money; he tries to get it,--he fails. Civilization withholds
cash from this man whose thought could master civilization, and ought
to master it, and will master it some day with a brush, a chisel, with
words, ideas, theories, systems. Civilization is atrocious! It denies
bread to the men who give it luxury. It starves them on sneers and
curses, the beggarly rascal! My words may be strong, but I shall not
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